Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/citytliatwasrequiOOirwiricli 


THE     CITY     THAT     WAS 


THE  CITY  THAT  WAS 

A  Requiem  of  Old  San  Francisco 


By  Will  Irwin 


New  York 

B.  W.  Huebsch 

1906 


•  •  •         •   •     •••••• 


Copyright  1906 
By  B.  W.  Huebsch 


All  rights  reserved 


Fourth  printing,  May,  191 5 


F  3if 

53  I7 


C 


0^. 


z 


This  is  a  recast  of  a  newspaper  article 
of  the  same  title  publisned  in  The  Sun 
April  21,  1906,  three  days  after  the  Vis- 
itation came  upon  San  Francisco.  It  is 
here  published  by  special  permission  of 
The  Sun.  For  the  title,  I  am  indebted 
to  Franklin  Matthews.  W.I. 


I 


818 


THE  CITY  THAT  WAS 

"I'd  rather  be  a  busted  lamp  poet  en  ^^attery 
Street,  San  Francisco,  thin  the  •  Waldor-f^Aiit^ii^." 
—Willie  Britt. 


T 


I   The  gayest,  lightest  hearted,     ^ 
most  pleasure  loving  city  of 


the  western  continent,  and  in  many 
ways  the  most  interesting  and  romantic, 
is  a  horde  of  refugees  living  among 
ruins.  It  may  rebuild;  it  probably  will; 
but  those  who  have  known  that  peculiar 
city  by  the  Golden  Gate,  have  caught  its 
flavor  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  feel  that  it 
can  never  be  the  same.  It  is  as  though  a 
pretty,  frivolous  woman  had  passed 
through  a  great  tragedy.  She  survives, 
but  she  is  sobered  and  different.  If  it 
rises  out  of  the  ashes  it  must  be  a  mod- 

[7l 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

em   city,   much   like   other  cities   and 
without  its  old  atmosphere. 

San  Francisco  lay  on  a  series  of  hills 
^n^-.the  iowl^n&s  between.  These  hills 
afe'really  the  erid.fxf  the  Coast  Range  of 
'•jgnJotifrfaiftS;  'rwiirelb -stretch  southward  be- 
tween the  interior  valleys  and  the  Pa- 
cific Ocean.  Behind  it  is  the  ocean; 
but  the  greater  part  of  the  town  fronts 
on  two  sides  on  San  Francisco  Bay,  a 
body  of  water  always  tinged  with  gold 
from  the  great  washings  of  the  moun- 
tain, usually  overhung  with  a  haze,  and 
of  magnificent  color  changes.  Across 
the  bay  to  the  north  lies  Mount  Tamal- 
pais,  about  3,000  feet  high,  and  so  close 
that  ferries  from  the  waterfront  take 
one  in  less  than  half  an  hour  to  the  little 
towns  of  Sausalito  and  Belvidere,  at  its 
foot. 

Tamalpais  is  a  wooded  mountain, 
with  ample  slopes,  and  from  it  on  the 
north  stretch  away  ridges  of  forest  land, 

[8] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

the  outposts  of  the  great  Northern 
woods  of  Sequoia  sempervirens.  This 
mountain  and  the  mountainous  country 
to  the  south  bring  the  real  forest 
closer  to  San  Francisco  than  to  any 
other  American  city.  Within  the  last 
few  years  men  have  killed  deer  on  the 
slopes  of  Tamalpais  and  looked  down  to 
see  the  cable  cars  crawling  up  the  hills 
of  San  Francisco  to  the  south.  In  the 
suburbs  coyotes  still  stole  in  and  robbed 
hen  rposts  by  night.  The  people  lived 
much  out  of  doors.  There  is  no  time  of 
the  year,  except  a  short  part  of  the  rainy 
season,  when  the  weather  keeps  one 
from  the  fields.  The  slopes  of  Tamal- 
pais are  crowded  with  little  villas  dotted 
through  the  woods,  and  these  minor  es- 
tates run  far  up  into  the  redwood  coun- 
try. The  deep  coves  of  Belvidere, 
sheltered  by  the  wind  from  Tamalpais, 
held  a  colony  of  **arks"  or  houseboats, 
where  people  lived  in  the  rather  dis- 

[9l 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

agreeable  summer  months,  coming  over 
to  business  every  day  by  ferry.  Every- 
thing there  invites  out  of  doors. 

The  climate  of  California  is  peculiar; 
it  is  hard  to  give  an  impression  of  it.  In 
the  region  about  San  Francisco,  all  the 
forces  of  nature  work  on  their  own  laws. 
There  is  no  thunder  and  lightning;  there 
is  no  snow,  except  a  flurry  once  in  five 
or  six  years;  there  are  perhaps  half  a 
dozen  nights  in  the  winter  when  the 
thermometer  drops  low  enough  so  that 
in  the  morning  there  is  a  little  film  of  ice 
on  exposed  water.  Neither  is  there 
any  hot  weather.  Yet  most  Easterners 
remaining  in  San  Francisco  for  a  few 
days  remember  that  they  were  always 
chilly. 

For  the  Gate  is  a  big  funnel,  drawing 
in  the  winds  and  the  mists  which  cool 
off  the  great,  hot  interior  valleys  of  the 
San  Joaquin  and  Sacramento.  So  the 
west  wind  blows  steadily  ten  months  of 

[lo] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

the  year;  and  almost  all  the  mornings 
are  foggy.  This  keeps  the  temperature 
steady  at  about  55  degrees — a  little  cool 
for  the  comfort  of  an  unacclimated  per- 
son, especially  indoors.  Californians, 
used  to  it,  hardly  ever  think  of  making 
fires  in  their  houses  except  in  a  few  days 
of  the  winter  season,  and  then  they  rely 
mainly  upon  fireplaces.  This  is  like  the 
custom  of  the  Venetians  and  the  Flor- 
entines. 

Give  an  Easterner  six  months  of  it, 
however,  and  he,  too,  learns  to  exist 
without  chill  in  a  steady  temperature  a 
little  lower  than  that  to  which  he  was 
accustomed  at  home.  After  that  one 
goes  about  with  perfect  indifference  to 
the  temperature.  Summer  and  winter, 
San  Francisco  women  wear  light  tailor- 
made  clothes,  and  men  wear  the  same 
fall-weight  suits  all  the  year  aroimd. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  change  of 
clothing  for  the  seasons.  And  after  be- 
[II] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

coming  acclimated  these  people  find  it 
hard  to  bear  the  changes  from  hot  to 
cold  in  the  normal  regions  of  the  earth. 
Perhaps  once  in  two  or  three  years  there 
comes  a  day  when  there  is  no  fog,  no 
wind,  and  a  high  temperature  in  the 
coast  district.  Then  follows  hot  weath- 
er, perhaps  up  in  the  eighties,  and  Cali- 
f ornians  grumble,  swelter  and  rustle  for 
summer  clothes.  These  rare  hot  days 
are  the  only  times  when  one  sees  women 
in  light  dresses  on  the  streets  of  San 
Francisco. 

Along  in  early  May  the  rains  cease. 
At  that  time  everything  is  green  and 
bright,  and  the  great  golden  poppies,  as 
large  as  the  saucer  of  an  after-dinner 
coffee  cup,  are  blossoming  everywhere. 
Tamalpais  is  green  to  its  top;  every- 
thing is  washed  and  bright.  By  late 
May  a  yellow  tinge  is  creeping  over  the 
hills.  This  is  followed  by  a  golden  June 
and  a  brown  July  and  August.  The  hills 

[12] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

are  burned  and  dry.  The  fog  comes  in 
heavily,  too;  and  normally  this  is  the 
most  disagreeable  season  of  the  year. 
September  brings  a  day  or  two  of  gentle 
rain;  and  then  a  change,  as  sweet  and 
mysterious  as  the  breaking  of  spring  in 
the  East,  passes  over  the  hills.  The 
green  grows  through  the  brown  and  the 
flowers  begin  to  come  out. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  unpleasant- 
ness of  summer  is  modified  by  the  cer- 
tainty that  one  can  go  anjrwhere 
VTithout  fear  of  rain.  And  in  all  the 
coast  mountains,  especially  the  seaward 
slopes,  the  dews  and  the  shelter  of  the 
giant  underbrush  hold  the  water,  so  that 
these  areas  are  green  and  pleasant  all 
summer. 

In  a  normal  year  the  rains  begin  to 
fall  heavily  in  November;  there  will  be 
three  or  four  days  of  steady  downpour 
and  then  a  clear  and  green  week.  De- 
cember is  also  likely  to  be  rainy;  and  in 
[13] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

this  month  people  enjoy  the  sensation  of 
gathering  for  Christmas  the  mistletoe 
which  grows  profusely  on  the  live  oaks, 
while  the  poppies  are  beginning  to  blos- 
som at  their  feet.  By  the  end  of  January 
the  gentle  rains  come  lighter.  In  the 
long  spaces  between  these  winter 
storms,  there  is  a  temperature  and  a 
feeling  in  the  air  much  like  that  of  In- 
dian summer  in  the  East.  January  is  the 
month  when  the  roses  are  at  their 
brightest. 

So  much  for  the  strange  climate, 
which  invites  out  of  doors  and  which  has 
played  its  part  in  making  the  character 
of  the  people.  The  externals  of  the  city 
are— or  were,  for  they  are  no  more — 
just  as  curious.  One  usually  entered 
San  Francisco  by  way  of  the  Bay. 
Across  its  yellow  flood,  covered  with  the 
fleets  from  the  strange  seas  of  the  Pa- 
cific, San  Francisco  presented  itself  in  a 
hill  panorama.    Probably  no  other  city 

[I4l 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

of  the  world,  excepting  perhaps  Naples, 
could  be  so  viewed  at  first  sight.  It  rose 
above  the  passenger,  as  he  reached  dock- 
age, in  a  succession  of  hill  terraces.  At 
one  side  was  Telegraph  Hill,  the  end  of 
the  peninsula,  a  height  so  abrupt  that 
it  had  a  one  hundred  and  fifty  foot  sheer 
cliff  on  its  seaward  frontage.  Further 
along  lay  Nob  Hill,  crowned  with  the 
Mark  Hopkins  mansion,  which  had  the 
effect  of  a  citadel,  and  in  later  years  by 
the  great,  white  Fairmount.  Further 
along  was  Russian  Hill,  the  highest 
point.  Below  was  the  business  district, 
whose  low  site  caused  all  the  trouble. 

Except  for  the  modern  buildings,  the 
fruit  of  the  last  ten  years,  the  town  pre- 
sented at  first  sight  a  disreputable  ap- 
jpeaTancej^''Mosi^  were       ^ 

low  and  of  wood.  In  the  middle  period 
of  the  70's,  when  a  great  part  of  San 
Francisco  was  building,  the  newly-rich 
perpetrated  some  atrocious  architecture. 
[15] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

In  that  time,  too  every  one  put  bow  win- 
dows on  his  house  to  catch  all  of  the 
morning  sunlight  that  was  coming 
through  the  fog;  and  those  little  houses, 
with  bow  windows  and  fancy  work  all 
down  their  fronts,  were  characteristic 
of  the  middle  class  residence  districts. 

Then  the  Italians,  who  tumbled  over 
Telegraph  Hill,  had  built  as  they  listed 
and  with  little  regard  for  streets,  and 
their  houses  hung  crazily  on  a  side  hill 
which  was  little  less  than  a  precipice. 
The  Chinese,  although  they  occupied  an 
abandoned  business  district,  had  re- 
made their  dwellings  Chinese  fashion, 
and  the  Mexicans  and  Spaniards  had 
added  to  their  houses  those  little  balco- 
nies without  which  life  is  not  life  to  a 
Spaniard. 

Yet  the  most  characteristic  thing 
after  all  was  the  coloring.  The  sea  fog 
had  a  trick  of  painting  every  exposed 
object  a  sea  gray  which  had  a  tinge  of 

[i6J 


THE   CITY    THAT   WAS 

dull  green  in  it.  This,  under  the  leaden 
sky  of  a  San  Francisco  morning,  had  a 
depressing  effect  on  first  sight  and 
afterward  became  a  delight  to  the  eye. 
For  the  color  was  soft,  gentle  and  in- 
finitely attractive  in  mass. 

The  hills  are  steep  beyond  conception. 
Where  Vallejo  street  ran  up  Russian 
Hill  it  progressed  for  four  blocks  by 
regular  steps  like  a  flight  of  stairs.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  say  that  no  teams  ever 
came  up  this  street  or  any  other  like  it, 
and  grass  grew  long  among  the  paving 
stones  until  the  Italians  who  live  there- 
abouts took  advantage  of  this  herbage 
to  pasture  a  cow  or  two.  At  the  end  of 
four  blocks,  the  pavers  had  given  it  up 
and  the  last  stage  to  the  summit  was  a 
winding  path.  On  the  very  top,  a  col- 
ony of  artists  lived  in  little  villas  of 
houses  whose  windows  got  the  whole 
panorama  of  the  bay.  Luckily  for  these 
people,  a  cable  car  scaled  the  hill  on  the 

[i7l 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

Other  side,  so  that  it  was  not  much  of  a 
climb  to  home. 

With  these  hills,  with  the  strangeness 
of  the  architecture  and  with  the  green- 
gray  tinge  over  everything,  the  city  fell 
always  into  vistas  and  pictures,  a  set- 
ting for  the  romance  which  hung  over 
everything,  which  has  always  hung  over 
life  in  San  Francisco  since  the  padres 
came  and  gathered  the  Indians  about 
Mission  Dolores. 

And  it  was  a  city  of  romance  and  a 
gateway  to  adventure.  It  opened  out  on 
the  mysterious  Pacific,  the  untamed 
ocean;  and  through  the  Golden  Gate  en- 
tered China,  Japan,  the  South  Sea  Isl- 
ands, Lower  California,  the  west  coast 
of  Central  America,  Australia.  There 
was  a  sprinkling,  too,  of  Alaska  and  Si- 
beria. From  his  windows  on  Russian 
Hill  one  saw  always  something  strange 
and  suggestive  creeping  through  the 
mists  of  the  bay.    It  would  be  a  South 

[i8] 


I  THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

i  Sea  Island  brig,  bringing  in  copra,  to 
take  out  cottons  and  idols;  a  Chinese 
I  junk  after  sharks'  livers;  an  old  whaler, 
J  which  seemed  to  drip  oil,  home  from  a 
i  year  of  cruising  in  the  Arctic.  Even  the 
tramp  windjammers  were  deep-chested 

i  craft,  capable  of  rounding  the  Horn  or 
of  circumnavigating  the  globe ;  and  they 
I  came  in  streaked  and  picturesque  frcwn 
I  their  long  voyaging. 
I     In  the  orange  colored  dawn  which  al- 
Jways  comes  through  the  mists  of  that 
Ibay,  the  fishing  fleet  would  crawl  in 
Sunder  triangular  lateen  sails;  for  the 
ffishermen  of  San  Francisco  Bay  arc  all 
J  Neapolitans   who   have   brought   their 
^customs  and  sail  with  lateen  rigs  stained 
Ian  orange  brown  and  shaped,  when  the 
jwind  fills  them,  like  the  ear  of  a  horse. 
Along  the  waterfront  the  people  of 
these  craft  met.    "The  smelting  pot  of 
the  races,'*  Stevenson  called  it;  and  this 
'  was  always  the  city  of  his  soul.    There 
[19] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

were  black  Gilbert  Islanders,  almost  in- 
distinguishable from  negroes;  lighter 
Kanakas  from  Hawaii  or  Samoa;  Las- 
cars in  turbans;  thickset  Russian  sail- 
ors, wild  Chinese  with  unbraided  hair; 
Italian  fishermen  in  tam  o'  shanters, 
loud  shirts  and  blue  sashes;  Greeks, 
Alaska  Indians,  little  bay  Spanish-Am- 
ericans, together  with  men  of  all  the 
European  races.  These  came  in  and  out 
from  among  the  queer  craft,  to  lose 
themselves  in  the  disreputable,  tumble- 
down, but  always  mysterious  shanties 
and  small  saloons.  In  the  back  rooms  of 
these  saloons  South  Sea  Island  traders 
and  captains,  fresh  from  the  lands  of  ro- 
mance, whaling  masters,  people  who 
were  trying  to  get  up  treasure  expedi- 
tions, filibusters,  Alaskan  miners,  used 
to  meet  and  trade  adventures. 

There  was  another  element,  less  pic- 
turesque and  equally  characteristic, 
along  the  waterfront.     San  Francisco 

[20] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

was  the  back  eddy  of  European  civiliza- 
tion— one  end  of  the  world.  The  drift- 
ers came  there  and  stopped,  lingered  a 
while  to  live  by  their  wits  in  a  country 
where  living  after  a  fashion  has  always 
been  marvellously  cheap.  These  people 
haunted  the  waterfront  and  the  Barbary 
Coast  by  night,  and  lay  by  day  on  the 
grass  in  Portsmouth  Square. 

The  square,  the  old  plaza  about  which 
the  city  was  built,  Spanish  fashion,  had 
seen  many  things.  There  in  the  first 
burst  of  the  early  days  the  vigilance 
committee  used  to  hold  its  hangings. 
There,  in  the  time  of  the  sand  lot  trou- 
bles, Dennis  Kearney,  who  nearly  pulled 
the  town  down  about  his  ears,  used  to 
make  his  orations  which  set  the  unruly 
to  rioting.  In  later  years  Chinatown 
lay  on  one  side  of  it  and  the  Latin  quart- 
er and  the  "Barbary  Coast"  on  the  other. 

On  this  square  the  drifters  lay  all  day 
long  and  told  strange  yarns.    Stevenson 

[21] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

lounged  there  with  them  in  his  time  and 
learned  the  things  which  he  wove  into 
"The  Wrecker"  and  his  South  Sea  sto- 
ries; and  now  in  the  centre  of  the  square 
there  stands  the  beautiful  Stevenson 
monument.  In  later  years  the  authori- 
ties put  up  a  municipal  building  on  one 
side  of  this  square  and  prevented  the 
loungers,  for  decency's  sake,  from  lying 
on  the  grass.  Since  then  some  of  the 
peculiar  character  of  the  old  plaza  has 
gone. 
The  Barbary  Coast  was  a  loud  bit  of; 


hell.     No  one  knows  who  coined  the 


name.  The  place  was  simpIjT"  three 
blocks  of  solid  dance  halls,  there  for  the 
delight  of  the  sailors  of  the  world.  On 
a  fine  busy  night  every  door  blared  loud 
dance  music  from  orchestras,  steam 
pianos  and  gramaphones,  and  the  cumu- 
lative effect  of  the  sound  which  reached 
the  street  was  chaos  and  pandemonium. 
Almost  anything  might  be  happening 

[22] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

behind  the  swinging  doors.  For  a  fine 
and  picturesque  bundle  o£  names  char- 
acteristic of  the  place,  a  police  story  of 
three  or  four  years  ago  is  typical.  Hell 
broke  out  in  the  Eye  Wink  Dance  Hall. 
The  trouble  was  started  by  a  sailor 
known  as  Kanaka  Pete,  who  lived  in  the 
What  Cheer  House,  over  a  woman 
known  as  Iodoform  Kate.  Kanaka 
Pete  chased  the  man  he  had  marked  to 
the  Little  Silver  Dollar,  where  he 
halted  and  punctured  him.  The  by- 
product of  his  gun  made  some  holes  in 
the  front  of  the  Eye  Wink,  which  were 
proudly  kept  as  souvenirs,  and  were 
probably  there  until  it  went  out  in  the 
fire.  This  was  low  life,  the  lowest  of 
the  low. 

Until  the  last  decade  almost  anything 
except  the  commonplace  and  the  ex- 
pected might  happen  to  a  man  on  the 
waterfront.  The  cheerful  industry  of 
shanghaing  was  reduced  to  a  science.  A 
[23] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

citizen  taking  a  drink  in  one  of  the  sal- 
oons which  hung  out  over  the  water 
might  be  dropped  through  the  floor  into 
a  boat,  or  he  might  drink  with  a  strang- 
er and  wake  in  the  forecastle  of  a  whaler 
bound  for  the  Arctic.  Such  an  incident 
is  the  basis  of  Frank  Norris's  novel, 
"Moran  of  the  Lady  Letty,"  and  al- 
though the  novel  draws  it  pretty  strong, 
it  is  not  exaggerated.  Ten  years  ago 
the  police,  the  Sailors'  Union,  and  the 
foreign  consuls,  working  together,  stop- 
ped all  this. 


Kearney  street,  a  wilder  and  stranger 
Bowery,  was  the  main  thoroughfare  of 
these  people.  An  exiled  Californian, 
mourning  over  the  city  of  his  heart,  has 
said: 

"In  a  half  an  hour  of  Kearney  street  I 
could  raise  a  dozen  men  for  any  wild  ad- 
venture, from  pulling  down  a  statue  to 
searching  for  the  Cocos  Island  treas- 
ure." This  is  hardly  an  exaggeration. 
[24] 


THE   CITY    THAT   WAS 

It  was  the  Rialto  of  the  desperate, 
Street  o£  the  Adventurers. 

These  are  a  few  of  the  elements  which 
made  the  city  strange  and  gave  it  the 
glamour  of  romance  which  has  so 
strongly  attracted  such  men  as  Steven- 
son, Frank  Norris  and  Kipling.  This 
life  of  the  floating  population  lay  apart 
from  the  regular  life  of  the  city,  which 
was  distinctive  in  itself. 

The  Californian  is  the  second  genera- 
tion of  a  picked  and  mixed  ancestry.  The 
merry,  the  adventurous,  often  the  des- 
perate, always  the  brave,  deserted  the 
South  and  New  England  in  1849  to  rush 
around  the  Horn  or  to  try  the  perils  of 
the  plains.  They  found  there  a  land  al- 
ready grown  old  in  the  hands  of  the 
Spaniards — younger  sons  of  hidalgo 
and  many  of  them  of  the  best  blood 
of  Spain.  To  a  great  extent  the  pioneers 
intermarried  with  Spanish  women;  in 
fact,  except  for  a  proud  little  colony  here 
[25] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

and  there,  the  old,  aristocratic  Spanish 
blood  is  sunk  in  that  of  the  conquering 
race.  Then  there  was  an  influx  of  in- 
tellectual French  people,  largely  over- 
looked in  the  histories  of  the  early  days; 
and  this  Latin  leaven  has  had  its  influ- 
ence. 

Brought  up  in  a  bountiful  country, 
where  no  one  really  has  to  work  very 
hard  to  live,  nurtured  on  adventure, 
scion  of  a  free  and  merry  stock,  the  real, 
native  Calif ornian  is  a  distinctive  type; 
as  far  from  the  Easterner  in  psychology 
as  the  extreme  Southerner  is  from  the 
Yankee.  He  is  easy  going,  witty,  hos- 
pitable, lovable,  inclined  to  be  unmoral 
rather  than  immoral  in  his  personal  hab- 
its, and  easy  to  meet  and  to  know. 

Above  all  there  is  an  art  sense  all 
through  the  populace  which  sets  it  off 
from  any  other  population  of  the  coun- 
try. This  sense  is  almost  Latin  in  its 
strength,  and  the  Californian  owes  it  to 
[26] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

the  leaven  of  Latin  blood.  The  true 
Calif omian  lingers  in  the  north;  for 
southern  California  has  been  built  up  by 
"lungers"  from  the  East  and  middle 
West  and  is  Eastern  in  character  and 
feeling. 

Almost  has  the  Calif ornian  developed 
a  racial  physiology.  He  tends  to  size,  to 
smooth  symmetry  of  limb  and  trunk,  to 
an  erect,  free  carriage;  and  the  beauty  of 
his  women  is  not  a  myth.  The  pioneers 
were  all  men  of  good  body;  they  had  to 
te  to  live  and  leave  descendants.  The 
bones  of  the  weaklings  who  started  for 
El  Dorado  in  1849  lie  on  the  plains  or  in 
the  hill-cemeteries  of  the  mining  camps. 
Heredity  began  it;  climate  has  cagjed.^^ 
it  on.  All  things  that  grow  in  Cali- 
fornia tend  to  become  large,  plump,  lus- 
cious. Fruit  trees,  grown  from  cuttings 
of  Eastern  stock,  produce  fruit  larger 
and  finer,  if  coarser  in  flavor,  than  that 
of  the  parent  tree.  As  the  fruits  grow, 
[27] 


THE   CITY   THAT  WAS 

SO  the  children  grow.  A  normal, 
healthy,  Californian  woman  plays  out- 
of-doors  from  babyhood  to  old  age.  The 
mixed  stock  has  given  her  that  regular- 
ity of  features  which  goes  with  a  blend 
of  bloods;  the  climate  has  perfected  and 
rounded  her  figure;  out-of-doors  exer- 
cise from  earliest  youth  has  given  her  a 
deep  bosom;  the  cosmetic  mists  have 
made  her  complexion  soft  and  brilliant. 
At  the  University  of  California,  where 
the  student  body  is  nearly  all  native,  the 
gymnasium  measurements  show  that 
the  girls  are  a  little  more  than  two 
inches  taller  than  their  sisters  of  Vassar 
and  Michigan. 

The  greatest  beauty-show  on  the  con- 
tinent was  the  Saturday  afternoon  mat- 
inee parade  in  San  Francisco.  Women 
in  so-called  "society"  took  no  part  in 
this  function.  It  belonged  to  the  middle 
class,  but  the  "upper  classes"  have  no 
monopoly  of  beauty  anywhere  in  the 
[28] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

world.  It  had  grown  to  be  independent 
of  the  matinees.  From  two  o'clock  to 
half-past  five,  a  solid  procession  of  Di- 
anas, Hebes  and  Junos  passed  and  re- 
passed along  the  five  blocks  between 
Market  and  Powell  and  Sutter  and 
Kearney — the  "line"  of  San  Francisco 
slang.  Along  the  open-front  cigar 
stores,  characteristic  of  the  town, 
gilded  youth  of  the  cocktail  route  gath- 
ered in  knots  to  watch  them.  There  was 
something  Latin  in  the  spirit  of  this 
ceremony — it  resembled  church  parade 
in  Buenos  Ayres.  Latin,  too,  were  the 
gay  costumes  of  the  women,  who 
dressed  brightly  in  accord  with  the  city 
and  the  climate.  This  gaiety  of  costume 
was  the  first  thing  which  the  Eastern 
woman  noticed — and  disapproved.  Give 
her  a  year,  and  she,  too,  would  be  caught 
by  the  infection  of  daring  dress. 

In  this  parade  of  tall,  deep  bosomed, 
gleaming  women,  one  caught  the  type 
[39] 


THE  CITY   THAT  WAS 

and  longed,  sometimes  for  the  sight  of 
a  more  ethereal  beauty — for  the  sugges- 
tion of  soul  within  which  belongs  to  a 
New  England  woman  on  whom  a  hard 
soil  has  bestowed  a  grudged  beauty — 
for  the  mobility,  the  fire,  which  be- 
longs to  the  Frenchwoman.  The  sec- 
ond generation  of  France  was  in  this 
crowd,  it  is  true;  but  climate  and  exer- 
cise had  grown  above  their  spiritual 
charm  a  cover  of  brilliant  flesh.  It  was 
the  beauty  of  Greece. 

With  such  a  people,  life  was  always 
gay.  If  the  fairly  Parisian  gaiety  did 
not  display  itself  on  the  streets,  except 
in  the  matinee  parade,  it  was  because 
the  winds  made  open-air  cafes  disagree- 
able at  all  seasons  of  the  year.  The  life 
careless  went  on  indoors  or  in  the  hun- 
dreds of  pretty  estates — "ranches''  the 
Califomians  called  them — ^which  fringe 
the  city. 

San  Francisco  was  famous  for  its  res- 
[30] 


THE   CITY   THAT  WAS 

taurants  and  cafes.  Probably  they  were 
lacking  at  the  top;  probably  the  very 
best,  for  people  who  do  not  care  how 
they  spend  their  money,  was  not  to  be 
had.  But  they  gave  the  best  fare  on 
earth,  for  the  price,  at  a  dollar,  seventy- 
five  cents,  a  half  a  dollar,  or  even  fifteen 
cents. 

If  one  should  tell  exactly  what  could 
be  had  at  Coppa's  for  fifty  cents  or  at 
the  Fashion  for,  say  thirty-five,  no  New 
Yorker  who  has  not  been  there  would 
believe  it.  The  San  Francisco  French 
dinner  and  the  San  Francisco  free  lunch 
were  as  the  Public  Library  to  Boston  or 
the  stock  yards  to  Chicago.  A  number 
of  causes  contributed  to  this.  The  coun- 
try all  about  produced  everything  that  a 
cook  needs  and  that  in  abundance — 
the  bay  was  an  almost  untapped  fishing 
pound,  the  fruit  farms  came  up  to  the 
very  edge  of  the  town,  and  the  surround- 
ing country  produced  in  abundance  fine 
[31] 


THE   CITY   THAT  WAS 

meats,  game,  all  cereals  and  all  veg- 
etables. 

But  the  chefs  who  came  from  France 
in  the  early  days  and  stayed  because 
they  liked  this  land  of  plenty  were  the 
head  and  front  of  it.  They  passed  on 
their  art  to  other  Frenchmen  or  to  the 
clever  Chinese.  Most  of  the  French 
chefs  at  the  biggest  restaurants  were 
bom  in  Canton,  China.  Later  the  Ital- 
ians, learning  of  this  country  where 
good  food  is  appreciated,  came  and 
brought  their  own  style.  Household- 
ers always  dined  out  one  or  two  nights 
of  the  week,  and  boarding  houses  were 
scarce,  for  the  unattached  preferred  the 
restaurants. 

The  eating  was  usually  better  than 
the  surroundings.  Meals  that  were 
marvels  were  served  in  tumbledown  lit- 
tle hotels.  Most  famous  of  all  the  res- 
taurants was  the  Poodle  Dog.  There 
have  been  no  less  than  four  establish- 

[3^1 


THE   CITY  THAT  WAS 

ments  of  this  name,  beginning  with  a 
frame  shanty  where,  in  the  early  days,  a 
prince  of  French  cooks  used  to  exchange 
ragouts  for  gold  dust.  Each  succeeding 
restaurant  of  the  name  has  moved  fur- 
ther downtown;  and  the  recent  Poodle 
Dog  stands — stands  or  stood;  one 
mixes  his  tenses  queerly  in  writing  of 
this  city  which  is  and  yet  is  no  more — 
on  the  edge  of  the  Tenderloin  in  a  mod- 
ern five  story  building.  And  it  typified 
a  certain  spirit  that  there  was  in  San 
Francisco. 

For  on  the  ground  floor  was  a  public 
restaurant  where  there  was  served  the 
best  dollar  dinner  on  earth.  At  least,  if 
not  the  best  it  ranked  with  the  best,  and 
the  others  were  in  San  Francisco.  There,, 
especially  on  Sunday  night,  almost 
everyone  went  to  vary  the  monotony  of 
home  cooking.  Everyone  who  was  any- 
one in  the  town  could  be  seen  there  off 
and  on.  It  was  perfectly  respectable. 
[33] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

A  man  might  take  his  wife  and  daughter 
to  the  Poodle  Dog. 

On  the  second  floor  there  were  private 
dining  rooms,  and  to  dine  there,  with 
one  or  more  of  the  opposite  sex,  was 
risque  but  not  especially  terrible.  But 
the  third  floor — and  the  fourth  floor — 
and  the  fifth!  The  elevator  man  of  the 
Poodle  Dog,  who  had  held  the  job  for 
many  years  and  who  never  spoke  unless 
spoken  to,  wore  diamonds  and  was  a 
heavy  investor  in  real  estate.  There 
were  others  as  famous  in  their  way — 
the  Zinkand,  where,  at  one  time,  every 
one  went  after  the  theatre,  and  Tate's, 
which  has  lately  bitten  into  that  trade; 
the  Palace  Grill,  much  like  the  grills  of 
Eastern  hotels,  except  for  the  price;  Del- 
tnonico's,  which  ran  the  Poodle  Dog 
neck  and  neck  to  its  own  line;  and  many 
others,  humbler  but  great  at  the  price. 

Listen!  O  ye  starved  amidst  plenty, 
to  the  tale  of  the  Hotel  de  France.    This 

[34l 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

restaurant  stood  on  California  street, 
just  east  of  Old  St.  Mary's  Church.  One 
could  throw  a  biscuit  from  its  back  win- 
dows into  Chinatown.  It  occupied  a  big 
ramshackle  house,  which  had  been  a 
mansion  of  the  gold  days.  Louis,  the 
proprietor,  was  a  Frenchman  of  the  Bas 
Pyrenees;  and  his  accent  was  as  thick  as 
his  peasant  soups.  The  patrons  were 
Frenchmen  of  the  poorer  class,  or  young 
and  poor  clerks  and  journalists  who  had 
discovered  the  delights  of  his  hostelry. 
The  place  exhuded  a  genial  gaiety,  of 
which  Louis,  throwing  out  familiar 
jokes  to  right  and  left  as  he  mixed  salads 
and  carried  dishes,  was  the  head  and 
front. 

First  on  the  bill  of  fare  was  the  soup 
mentioned  before — thick  and  clean  and 
good.  Next,  one  of  Louis'  three  cheru- 
bic little  sons  brought  on  a  course  of 
fish — sole,  rock  cod,  flounders  or  smelt — 
with  a  good  French  sauce.  The  third 
[35] 


THE  CITY   THAT  WAS 

course  was  meat.  This  came  on  en  bloc ; 
the  waiter  dropped  in  the  centre  of  each 
table  a  big  roast  or  boiled  joint  together 
with  a  mustard  pot  and  two  big  dishes 
of  vegetables.  Each  guest  manned  the 
carving  knife  in  turn  and  helped  him- 
self to  his  satisfaction.  After  that, 
Louis,  with  an  air  of  ceremony,  brought 
on  a  big  bowl  of  excellent  salad  which 
he  had  mixed  himself.  For  beverage, 
there  stood  by  each  plate  a  perfectly 
cylindrical  pint  glass  filled  with  new, 
watered  claret.  The  meal  closed  with 
"fruit  in  season" — all  that  the  guest 
cared  to  eat.  I  have  saved  a  startling 
fact  to  close  the  paragraph — the  price 
was  fifteen  cents! 

If  one  wanted  black  coffee  he  paid  five 
cents  extra,  and  Louis  brought  on  a  beer 
glass  full  of  it.  Why  he  threw  in  wine 
and  charged  extra  for  after-dinner  cof- 
fee was  one  of  Louis'  professional  se- 
crets. 

£361 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

Adulterated  food  at  that  price?  Not 
a  bit  of  it !  The  olive  oil  in  the  salad  was 
pure,  California  product — why  adulter- 
ate when  he  could  get  it  so  cheaply?  The 
wine,  too,  was  above  reproach,  for 
Louis  made  it  himself.  Every  autumn, 
he  brought  tons  and  tons  of  cheap  Mis- 
sion grapes,  set  up  a  wine  press  in  his 
back  yard,  and  had  a  little,  festival  vin- 
tage of  his  own.  The  fruit  was  small 
and  inferior,  but  fresh,  and  Louis  him- 
self, in  speaking  of  his  business,  said 
that  he  wished  his  guests  would  eat 
nothing  but  fruit,  it  came  so  cheap. 

The  city  never  went  to  bed.  There 
was  no  closing  law,  so  that  the  saloons 
kept  open  nights  and  Sundays  at  their 
own  sweet  will.  Most  of  the  cafes  elect- 
ed to  remain  open  until  2  o'clock  in  the 
morning  at  least. 

This  restaurant  life,  however  does  not 
express  exactly  the  careless,  pleasure- 
loving  character  of  the  people.  In  great 
[37] 


THE  CITY  THAT  WAS 

part  their  pleasures  were  simple,  inex- 
pensive and  out  of  doors.     No  people 

.  were  fonder  of  expeditions  into  the 
country,  of  picnics — which  might  be 
brought  off  at  almost  any  season  of  the 
year — and  of  long  tours  in  the  great 
mountains  and  forests. 

Hospitality  was  nearly  a  vice.    As  in 

•  the  early  mining  days,  if  they  liked  the 
stranger  the  people  took  him  in.  At  the 
first  meeting  the  San  Francisco  man 
had  him  put  up  at  the  club;  at  the  sec- 
ond, he  invited  him  home  to  dinner.  As 
long  as  the  stranger  stayed  he  was  being 
invited  to  week  end  parties  at  ranches, 
to  little  dinners  in  this  or  that  restaur- 
ant and  to  the  houses  of  his  new  ac- 
quaintances, until  his  engagements 
grew  beyond  hope  of  fulfilment.  Per- 
haps there  was  rather  too  much  of  this 
kind  of  thing.  At  the  end  of  a  fort- 
night a  visitor  with  a  pleasant  smile  and 
a  good  story  left  the  place  a  wreck.  This 
[38] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

tendency  ran  through  all  grades  of  so- 
ciety— except,  perhaps,  the  sporting  peo- 
ple who  kept  the  tracks  and  the  fighting 
game  alive.  These  also  met  the  strang- 
er— and  also  took  him  in. 

Centres  of  man  hospitality  were  the 
clubs,  especially  the  famous  Bohemian 
and  the  Family.  The  latter  was  an  off- 
shot  of  the  Bohemian;  and  it  had  been 
growing  fast  and  vieing  with  the  older 
organization  for  the  honor  of  entertain- 
ing pleasing  and  distinguished  visitors. 

The  Bohemian  Club,  whose  real 
founder  is  said  to  have  been  the  late 
Henry  George,  was  formed  in  the  70s 
by  newspaper  writers  and  men  working 
in  the  arts  or  interested  in  them.  It  had 
grown  to  a  membership  of  750.  It  still 
kept  for  its  nucleus  painters,  writers, 
musicians  and  actors,  amateur  and  pro- 
fessional. They  were  a  gay  group  of 
men,  and  hospitality  was  their  avoca- 
tion.   Yet  the  thing  which  set  this  club 

[39] 


THE   CITY   THAT  WAS 

off  from  all  others  in  the  world  was  the 
midsummer  High  Jinks. 

The  club  owns  a  fine  tract  of  redwood 
forest  fifty  miles  north  of  San  Francisco 
on  the  Russian  River.  There  are  two 
varieties  of  big  trees  in  California:  the 
Sequoia  gigantea  and  the  Sequoia  sem- 
pervirens.  The  great  trees  of  the  Mari- 
posa grove  belong  to  the  gigantea  spe- 
cies. The  sempervirens,  however, 
reaches  the  diameter  of  16  feet,  and 
some  of  the  greatest  trees  of  this  species 
are  in  the  Bohemian  Club  grove.  It  lies 
in  a  cleft  of  the  mountains :  and  up  one 
hillside  there  runs  a  natural  out  of  doors 
stage  of  remarkable  acoustic  properties. 

In  August  the  whole  Bohemian  Club, 
or  such  as  could  get  away  from  business, 
went  up  to  this  grove  and  camped  out 
for  two  weeks.  On  the  last  night  they 
put  on  the  Jinks  proper,  a  great  specta- 
cle in  praise  of  the  forest  with  poetic 
words,  music  and  effects  done  by  the 
[40] 


THE  CITY  THAT  WAS 

club.  In  late  years  this  has  been  prac- 
tically a  masque  or  an  opera.  It  cost 
about  $10,000.  It  took  the  spare  time  of 
scores  of  men  for  weeks;  yet  these  750 
business  men,  professional  men,  artists, 
newspaper  workers,  struggled  for  the 
honor  of  helping  out  on  the  Jinks;  and 
the  whole  thing  was  done  naturally  and 
with  reverence.  It  would  not  be  possi- 
ble anywhere  else  in  this  country;  the 
thing  which  made  it  possible  was  the  art 
spirit  which  is  in  the  Californian.  It 
runs  in  the  blood. 

"Who's  Who  in  America"  is  long  on 
the  arts  and  on  learning  and  compara- 
tively weak  in  business  and  the  profes- 
sions. Now  some  one  who  has  taken  the 
trouble  has  found  that  more  persons 
mentioned  in  "Who's  Who''  by  the  thou- 
sand of  the  population  were  born 
in  Massachusetts,  than  in  any  other 
state;  but  that  Massachusetts  is  crowded 
closely  by  California,  with  the  rest  no- 

[41] 


THE  CITY   THAT  WAS 

where.  The  institutions  of  learning  in 
Massachusetts  account  for  her  pre-em- 
inence; the  art  spirit  does  it  for  Califor- 
nia. The  really  big  men  nurtured  on 
California  influence  are  few,  perhaps; 
but  she  has  sent  out  an  amazing  number 
of  good  workers  in  painting,  in  author- 
ship, in  music  and  especially  in  acting. 

"High  society''  in  San  Francisco  had 
settled  down  from  the  rather  wild  spirit 
of  the  middle  period;  it  had  come  to  be 
there  a  good  deal  as  it  is  elsewhere. 
There  was  much  wealth;  and  the  hills 
of  the  western  addition  were  growing 
up  with  fine  mansions.  Outside  of  the 
city,  at  Burlingame,  there  was  a  fine 
country  club  centering  a  region  of  coun- 
try estates  which  stretched  out  to  Menlo 
Park.  This  club  had  a  good  polo  team, 
which  played  every  year  with  teams  of 
Englishmen  from  southern  California 
and  even  with  teams  from  Honolulu. 

The  foreign  quarters  are  worth  an  ar- 
[42] 


mm'  THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

^^ticle  in  themselves.  Chief  of  these  was, 
of  course,  Chinatown,  of  which  every 
one  has  heard  who  ever  heard  of  San 
Francisco.  A  district  six  blocks  long 
and  two  blocks  wide,  housed  30,000 
Chinese  when  the  quarter  was  full.  The 
dwellings  were  old  business  blocks  of 
the  early  days;  but  the  Chinese  had 
added  to  them,  had  rebuilt  them,  had 
run  out  their  own  balconies  and  entran- 
ces, and  had  given  the  quarter  that  feel- 
ing of  huddled  irregularity  which  makes 
all  Chinese  built  dwellings  fall  natural- 
ly into  pictures.  Not  only  this;  they  had 
burrowed  to  a  depth  of  a  story  or  two 
under  the  ground,  and  through  this  ran 
passages  in  which  the  Chinese  trans- 
acted their  dark  and  devious  affairs — as 
the  smuggling  of  opium,  the  traffic  in 
slave  girls  and  the  settlement  of  their 
difficulties. 

In  the  last  five  years  there  was  less  of 
this  underground  life  than  formerly,  for 

[43l 


THE  CITY  THAT  WAS 

the  Board  of  Health  had  a  cleanup  some 
time  ago;  but  it  was  still  possible  to  go 
from  one  end  of  Chinatown  to  the  other 
through  secret  underground  passages. 
The  tourist,  who  always  included  China- 
town in  his  itinerary,  saw  little  of  the 
real  quarter.  The  guides  gave  him  a 
show  by  actors  hired  for  his  benefit.  In 
reality  the  place  amounted  to  a  great 
deal  in  a  financial  way.  There  were 
clothing  and  cigar  factories  of  import- 
ance, and  much  of  the  Pacific  rice,  tea 
and  silk  importing  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  merchants,  who  numbered  several 
millionaires.  Mainly,  however,  it  was  a 
Tenderloin  for  the  house  servants  of  the 
city — for  the  San  Francisco  Chinaman 
was  seldom  a  laundryman;  he  was  too 
much  in  demand  at  fancy  prices  as  a  ser- 
vant. 

The  Chinese  lived  their  own  lives  in 
their  own  way  and  settled  their  own 
quarrels    with    the    revolvers    of   their 
[44] 


THE   CITY   THAT  WAS 

highbinders.  There  were  two  theatres 
in  the  quarter,  a  number  of  rich  joss 
houses,  three  newspapers  and  a  Chinese 
telephone  exchange.  There  is  a  race 
feeling  against  the  Chinese  among  the 
working  people  of  San  Francisco,  and 
no  white  man,  except  the  very  lowest 
outcasts,  lived  in  the  quarter. 

On  the  slopes  of  Telegraph  Hill  dwelt 
the  Mexicans  and  Spanish,  in  low 
houses,  which  they  had  transformed  by 
balconies  into  a  semblance  of  Spain. 
Above,  and  streaming  over  the  hill,  were 
the  Italians.  The  tenement  quarter  of 
San  Francisco  shone  by  contrast  with 
those  of  Chicago  and  New  York,  for 
while  these  people  lived  in  old  and  hum- 
ble houses  they  had  room  to  breathe  and 
an  eminence  for  light  and  air.  Their 
shanties  clung  to  the  side  of  the  hill  or 
hung  on  the  very  edge  of  the  precipice 
overlooking  the  bay,  on  the  verge  of 
which  a  wall  kept  their  babies  from  f all- 
[45] 


THE   CITY   THAT   WAS 

ing.  The  effect  was  picturesque,  and 
this  hill  was  the  delight  of  painters.  It 
was  all  more  like  Italy  than  anything  in 
the  Italian  quarter  of  New  York  and 
Chicago — ^the  very  climate  and  sur- 
roundings, the  wine  country  close  at 
hand,  the  bay  for  their  lateen  boats, 
helped  them. 

Over  by  the  ocean  and  surrounded  by 
cemeteries  in  which  there  are  no  more 
burials,  there  is  an  eminence  which  is 
topped  by  two  peaks  and  which  the 
Spanish  of  the  early  days  named  after 
the  breasts  of  a  woman.  The  unpoetic 
Americans  had  renamed  it  Twin  Peaks. 
At  its  foot  was  Mission  Dolores,  the  last 
mission  planted  by  the  Spanish  padres 
in  their  march  up  the  coast,  and  from 
these  hills  the  Spanish  looked  for  the 
first  time  upon  the  golden  bay. 

Many  years  ago  some  one  set  up  at 
the  summit  of  this  peak  a  sixty  foot 
cross  of  timber.  Once  a  high  wind  blew 
[46] 


THE   CITY   THAT  WAS 

it  down,  and  the  women  of  the  Fair  fam- 
ily then  had  it  restored  so  firmly  that  it 
would  resist  anything.  It  has  risen 
for  fifty  years  above  the  gay,  careless, 
luxuriant  and  lovable  city,  in  full  view 
from  every  eminence  and  from  every 
valley.  It  stands  tonight,  above  the 
desolation  of  ruins. 

The  bonny,  merry  city — the  good, 
gray  city — O  that  one  who  has  mingled 
the  wine  of  her  bounding  life  with  the 
wine  of  his  youth  should  live  to  write 
the  obituary  of  Old  San  Francisco! 


I47] 


IN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

202  Main  Library 


PERIOD  1 
V\EUSE 

2 

3 

5 

6 

SOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 
J^"^r*l*^  'f^*«^  ^^  ^*^^9  642-3405 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


iB^t^ 


n-W2? 


yUN03198S     ^|>G2a2Q(B 


MAR  P.  4  138^ 


151983 


iilL 


0  8  1991 


DEC     8  19{3 


TOlMi:  MtY   IS  t99> 


4U€h^ 


[VEP  BY 


L  H   idt^t) 


AiiroDiscciRc  AUG  org? 


TION  DEP1- 


OCT  1  6^98^ 


4985- 


tiG  's    1991 


MAR  04  1994 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAir 


GENERAL  tfBRARY  tlC.  BERKELEY 


BQ00117^Mb 


